While we’ve gone close to a decade since 9/11 without airliners smashing into skyscrapers, it is hard to see the Department of Homeland Security as an unvarnished success. Under a variety of directors the department has consistently taken a heavy-handed approach to security that upsets travelers on the left and right alike, relies too much on fear-mongering, and is frequently just plain incompetent. Yet these are the folks who are now about to take over cyber-security, too. I think there is a better way.

According to recent reports there is legislation moving shortly from the White House to Congress intended to put all U.S. non-military cyber-security responsibility with the Department of Homeland Security.